Danegeld in the Delta

A THOUSAND years ago an English king called Aethelred (“the Unready”) used to pay marauding Vikings sacks full of precious coins not to attack his kingdom. The trouble was, the Vikings got a taste for Danegeld, as it was later known, and kept coming back for more. King Aethelred learned a harsh lesson: when you reward bad behaviour, you get more of it.Nigeria’s rulers have yet to learn from history. In recent weeks a group of heavily armed and masked men calling themselves the Niger Delta Avengers has caused havoc in the region where Nigeria’s oil is pumped. With speedboats and submachine guns rather than longboats and battle-axes, they are every bit as fearsome as the Danes of old, and nearly as disruptive. They claim to fight for justice (and a bigger share of oil revenues) for the people of the Niger Delta. By blowing up pipelines they have helped crash oil production from 2.2m barrels per day to 1.5m. This has hobbled the Nigerian economy and gutted the budget—petrodollars account for nearly all of the country’s exports and the vast bulk of government revenues. It has also set off global ripples. The squeeze on Nigerian oil output is one reason why the price of crude has rallied in recent weeks.